Bloomberg is planning a protest on September 10th at Capitol Hill. If any of my readers who live in the area want to go grab a decent wide-angle picture, we’ll see what kind of turnout they can generate with all this new gun control energy the media keeps saying is welling up from the grassroots.
Donna Dees, the person behind the Million Mom March, writes an article over at The Daily Beast about how to organize a march: “Got $3 million? That’s what my march cost in 2000. The bigger the march, the more expensive the march.” Dees seems to believe that with the addition of Social Media, she could have produced a much bigger march than the Million Mom March on Mother Day 2000. I think she discounts that the dynamic of this issue has changed quite fundamentally since 2000. We have more women involved in the shooting sports and armed self-protection than any other time in recent memory. There are other voices, female  voices, out there who will oppose you vigorously. It won’t be as easy this time. Dees article reads like a bit of chest beating to me, almost challenging Bloomberg to do better than she could, knowing he probably won’t.
But Bloomberg certainly has the cash to organize a march on this scale, and you can drive turnout if you’re willing to pay for busses and boxed lunches. Despite the fact that most gun control groups are not doing well, Bloomberg brings more money to the table than the gun control movement has ever had at its disposal. Dees seems to believe, “America is at a rare tipping point now.” I guess Bloomberg’s rally on Capitol Hill will give us an idea of whether or not that’s true.
How long have they been prepping this? If they get 200 or so I’ll be surprised.
I’m not finding what times they are planning for this. However, I note the weather forecast for Thursday: Thunderstorms, potential for heavy rainfall. Chance of precipitation 100%.
I was thinking of biking over to the mall sometime Thursday but thunderstorms are a deal killer.
Also, one of the articles I scanned through looking for the time they plan to gather said Bloomberg planned to spend $50 million this year on anti-gun activities.
$3 million? “Thankfully, corporate sponsors, attracted to the mom demographic, footed most of the bill.” No wonder. Of course some fat cats fronted the money for a “grass roots” event.
I remember back in 2000 all the media talk about how the MMM was a “grass-roots” uprising. And even with the media trumpeting the MMM the whole time the entire MMM effort dissolved away like morning fog after the D.C. event.
Man, all that money and effort for NOTHING.
Makes you wonder with all that destruction of wealth and personal time for NOTHING (and just one day of fanfare), you aren’t surprised why gun control is drying up…but makes you wonder why the few bitter clingers (can I use that?) are still hanging on to the lost cause…
That’s also why the narrative is periodicaly pushed that gun control has been “reinvigorated” and why they will push for even a symbolic win.
Another buzz word that you see from gun-control advocates is “tipping point”. As in public support in favor of gun-control is at a tipping point. The gun control advocates are taking hope from the gay-marriage debate and think they can roll us the way the gay marriage advocates rolled the nation.
What they don’t realize is that the gay marriage advocates managed to do that by appealing to American’s sense of fairness and treating people with dignity. In the gun-control debate, we’re the side that gets to play that card.
Yes, but…
The gay marriages advocates have won the battle over popular support, and did so by appealing to fairness and empathy. However the actual sweep of rapid policy change across the nation was due to judicial fiat not popular support.
In that sense we live in bizarro land. The lower Federal Courts have demonstrated a hostility to constitutional gun rights which is almost exactly opposite to the favor they have showered on gay marriage rights. Even the Supreme Court is now indifferent to us.
I bet more people pay $100.00 to shoot this IDPA match next month than show up for Bloomberg’s picnic on the mall.
http://lonestarchampionship.com
#WhateverItTakes is pretty damn menacing.
“We will search house by house for guns to keep teh children safe #WhateverItTakes”
Menacing indeed.
It’s odd how schizophrenic the gun-control movement is. They simultaneously soften and harden rhetoric at the same time. They simultaneously proclaim respect for the 2nd Amendment while trumpeting Australian gun confiscation. They simultaneously proclaim they want to “start a conversation” while trumpeting “whatever it takes” to eliminate guns.
Of course it’s not so schizophrenic. The soft rhetoric is just to con the rubes into going along with the program. The hard rhetoric is to the true believers of gun control, to keep their spirits up with fantasies about a final solution to the “gun problem”.